Family is a constant inspiration for Peruvian producer and DJ Sofia Kourtesis. Her breakthrough 2021 single, La Perla, was dedicated to her late father, merging a gorgeously undulating melody with voice recordings, evoking a yearning for home from her new base in Berlin. Following a string of remixes for Caroline Polachek and Jungle, Kourtesis now delivers her debut album. Dedicated not only to her mother but also to the neurosurgeon who performed life-saving cancer surgery on her, Madres’s 10 tracks are a masterclass in emotive electronic production.
The opening title number sets the record’s joyous tone. With Kourtesis’s soft falsetto reverberating over a modular synth, it soars spaciously, spiralling outwards. This imaginative, cinematic quality is also a feature of the dancefloor-focused tracks such as the thumping Si Te Portas Bonito and bass-fuelled highlight Funkhaus. The ambient vocal layering in Moving Houses is an unconvincing, sketch-like interlude, but overall Madres is an uplifting experience. It peaks with How Music Makes You Feel Better, in which a techno-infused beat anchors a euphoric, arena-sized synth line, expressing Kourtesis’s belief in music’s capacity to heal the spirit.
